mantle placeHow to get an OBJ site context model
The lowest-common-denominator site mesh: OBJ terrain that thirty years of 3D software can read.
OBJ is the format you reach for when the tool on the other end is old, strict, or unknown — nearly every 3D application of the last three decades reads it. To get a real-world site as OBJ, draw the area on Mantle Place and the bundle ships the terrain mesh as OBJ with its material file and the draped imagery texture alongside, ready for Rhino, 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, and the long tail of pipeline tools that predate glTF. The trade-offs are the format’s own: textures travel as separate files, there is no units metadata, and the ASCII geometry runs large. Where a modern importer exists, the same bundle’s GLB is the tidier choice — the point of OBJ is that it works everywhere else.
how to do it
Draw the area
Define the extent of the site on the globe; the OBJ is clipped to that footprint like every other format in the bundle.
Download the bundle
The OBJ ships with its companion material file and the imagery texture, in the same download as the GLB, USDZ, and GeoTIFF layers.
Keep the files together
Move the OBJ, the material file, and the texture as a set — the material references the texture by path, and separating them strands the imagery.
Import and verify scale
Import into your tool and confirm the units read as meters; OBJ carries no units metadata, so the importer’s scale setting decides.
frequently asked
Why choose OBJ over glTF?
Compatibility. OBJ predates glTF by decades and imports into almost everything, including strict or legacy pipeline tools. If your importer handles GLB, prefer it; if not, the OBJ is there for exactly that case.
Does the OBJ include the aerial imagery?
Yes, as a separate texture referenced by the material file rather than embedded in the mesh. Keep the three files together and the imagery drapes onto the terrain on import.
Is OBJ still a reasonable format in 2026?
As a lowest common denominator, absolutely. It is verbose and carries no units or scene metadata, but its universality is unmatched — which is why the bundle ships it alongside the modern formats.
Get the data for your site.
Draw your area, see the price, and download an owned bundle — terrain, imagery, and basemap ready for Unreal Engine, Blender, and your CAD tools.